You control your attitude to life, even when your life is controlled. Others may victimize you, but only you decide if you are the victim. When you get knocked down, you are the one who says whether you belong on the ground or standing up again. You say this by your many little actions and reactions, responses and choices. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been down or how many times you tried to get up before, the next moment is always yours to create, bigger or smaller. Will you join the victims or set yourself free? This is the power of your eternal consciousness: to feel all your feelings and think all your thoughts and go further still, to have access to a larger picture, to take your option to reframe, to say where you’re coming from and where you’re going to. It is so because your eternality is the one thing that you cannot choose, which is good; this is God’s gift to you. No matter how long you’ve been asleep, one day you will wake up again.
- Spirit to Carl J. Schroeder, Monday March 10, 2014; www.HowToMakeHeavenOnEarth.org
Monday, March 10, 2014
Friday, February 28, 2014
Success and Cooperation
SLOGAN OF THE DAY: #1
When you try to improve your internal state by changing your external reality first, then you will meet conflict and resistance.
When you try to improve your external reality by changing your internal state first, then you will meet success and cooperation.
- Carl J. Schroeder, Feb 28, 2014; www.HowToMakeHeavenOnEarth.org
Explanation: I'm going to start sharing the daily slogans that come to me from Spirit, as an obvious way to make this inspirational website even more active, interesting, and helpful. I've been a little too perfectionist in holding back a lot of ideas until I make the complete essay or best poster to express them.
Today's slogan refers to how reality will change only when it needs to, based on the changes you've already made inside. Too many people make the mistake of trying to make themselves feel and think better by changing the world around them. They quickly hit problems, and then conclude that the world is against them. But this is just how reality works, so you don't have to take it personally.
Even when people make the internal changes that bring true peace and liberation, they may be surprised at how long remnants of the past still hang around. They think: "I felt such a big change in me, shouldn't the whole world reflect this overnight?" This apparent failure of reality to respond positively can cause people to doubt their personal transformations. They may even backslide and return to the security of fighting familiar old problems, which is always an option because we do have that free will.
If you find a way to truly feel and think better, then hurray for you, this is real! When you're not reacting to situations the same way you used to, when you're responding with more compassion and insight to all of life, then you can be sure that you have truly changed. The reason why reality might not change as quickly and fully with you is because reality is highly efficient. Nature will not spend the energy of changing until it absolutely needs to, for example because you simply can't take any next step until something moves.
If reality isn't changing overnight for you, ask yourself what really matters anyway. If you're not being stopped from working toward your goals, if there's another way around and more change would just be a matter of pride or convenience for you, then what you're really looking at is your own controlling ego. And if you stay in this place, you'll know, because more and more serious blockages will will start showing up, including people with obvious ego problems. At that point, you'll rest assured that you have not really changed, and you have more work to do to improve your internal state.
Better to be anonymously successful than famously failing; better to have private success than public failure. Reality may not acknowledge you as much as your ego would prefer to feel secure, but you'll be able to continue on your way to ever rising levels of satisfaction with your personal life, which is after all where you really live. By mastering your internal state as the source of your own experience, you will enjoy amazing synchronicities, miracles of support, and the endless variety of great friends who share your deepest values across this garden universe.
(my photo of the Buddha statue in my backyard, warmed by the sun, rising out of the melting snow)
When you try to improve your internal state by changing your external reality first, then you will meet conflict and resistance.
When you try to improve your external reality by changing your internal state first, then you will meet success and cooperation.
- Carl J. Schroeder, Feb 28, 2014; www.HowToMakeHeavenOnEarth.org
Explanation: I'm going to start sharing the daily slogans that come to me from Spirit, as an obvious way to make this inspirational website even more active, interesting, and helpful. I've been a little too perfectionist in holding back a lot of ideas until I make the complete essay or best poster to express them.
Today's slogan refers to how reality will change only when it needs to, based on the changes you've already made inside. Too many people make the mistake of trying to make themselves feel and think better by changing the world around them. They quickly hit problems, and then conclude that the world is against them. But this is just how reality works, so you don't have to take it personally.
Even when people make the internal changes that bring true peace and liberation, they may be surprised at how long remnants of the past still hang around. They think: "I felt such a big change in me, shouldn't the whole world reflect this overnight?" This apparent failure of reality to respond positively can cause people to doubt their personal transformations. They may even backslide and return to the security of fighting familiar old problems, which is always an option because we do have that free will.
If you find a way to truly feel and think better, then hurray for you, this is real! When you're not reacting to situations the same way you used to, when you're responding with more compassion and insight to all of life, then you can be sure that you have truly changed. The reason why reality might not change as quickly and fully with you is because reality is highly efficient. Nature will not spend the energy of changing until it absolutely needs to, for example because you simply can't take any next step until something moves.
If reality isn't changing overnight for you, ask yourself what really matters anyway. If you're not being stopped from working toward your goals, if there's another way around and more change would just be a matter of pride or convenience for you, then what you're really looking at is your own controlling ego. And if you stay in this place, you'll know, because more and more serious blockages will will start showing up, including people with obvious ego problems. At that point, you'll rest assured that you have not really changed, and you have more work to do to improve your internal state.
Better to be anonymously successful than famously failing; better to have private success than public failure. Reality may not acknowledge you as much as your ego would prefer to feel secure, but you'll be able to continue on your way to ever rising levels of satisfaction with your personal life, which is after all where you really live. By mastering your internal state as the source of your own experience, you will enjoy amazing synchronicities, miracles of support, and the endless variety of great friends who share your deepest values across this garden universe.
Monday, February 10, 2014
what happened to this blog and me
I'm going to try a new attitude for this blog, since it's gone evidently fallow in the past year. In the beginning of 2013 I started my facebook project at www.HowToMakeHeavenOnEarth.org, which successfully resulted in a series of inspirational images, slogans, and essays. This blog got less and less attention, occasionally reposting some essays. As 2013 progressed my personal life became increasingly complex and challenging, until my public writing went dormant and I focussed on my own private journals and friendships (always a good refuge for the soul!)
Now we're into February of 2014, and my late new year's resolution is to use this blog more for sharing some personal experiences like dreams and daily insights that I don't have time to turn into full essays. HowToMakeHeavenOnEarth will remain a place for polished presentations, and there have been some new essays in recent months, mostly leveraging on a backlog of inspirational photos and slogans I'd already done. I'll continue to re-post those essays here as well.
My goal for 2014 is to re-establish myself in a new area of the United States to begin the second half of my life, having met my Chiron return (a fancy astrological way of saying middle age, LOL)
Since this may well be a time for everyone to become more centered and focussed on their own life experiences and plans, I wish you all the best in your own process as well. May the blessings of a God-connected life be yours to know and enjoy, and may you find the supports, love, and guidance you need to maintain it through all of your own challenges.
peace to all,
Carl J. Schroeder
Now we're into February of 2014, and my late new year's resolution is to use this blog more for sharing some personal experiences like dreams and daily insights that I don't have time to turn into full essays. HowToMakeHeavenOnEarth will remain a place for polished presentations, and there have been some new essays in recent months, mostly leveraging on a backlog of inspirational photos and slogans I'd already done. I'll continue to re-post those essays here as well.
My goal for 2014 is to re-establish myself in a new area of the United States to begin the second half of my life, having met my Chiron return (a fancy astrological way of saying middle age, LOL)
Since this may well be a time for everyone to become more centered and focussed on their own life experiences and plans, I wish you all the best in your own process as well. May the blessings of a God-connected life be yours to know and enjoy, and may you find the supports, love, and guidance you need to maintain it through all of your own challenges.
peace to all,
Carl J. Schroeder
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